Chapter 3

Democracy: Maybe Less

Is More

DEMOCRACY IS THE RULE OF the people, but it incentiv-

izes them to be ignorant, misinformed, tribalistic, bad at
deliberating, and bad at processing information. They are
mostly innocent of ideology and political belief, and what
beliefs they have usually arise from conformity to their
party rather than from due consideration of their real
interests. We have little reason to believe that wisdom is
an emergent feature of the crowd.
In this chapter, I will argue that one solution to the
problems of democracy is . . . less democracy. Perhaps the
solution is not merely less democracy, but less politics,
period.
That is, even if we retain what is overall a democratic
form of government, the problems of political ignorance,
misinformation, bias, and tribalism explain why it’s a good
idea to keep certain issues away from voters. One reason
democratic governments around the world perform as
well as they do is that they are not completely democratic.
In other cases, the solution is to keep matters away from
political control altogether.

Debating Democracy. Jason Brennan and Hélène Landemore, Oxford University Press. © Oxford
University Press 2022. DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197540817.003.0004
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 69

EPISTEMIC THEORIES
OF DE MOCR ACY

Epistemic or instrumentalist theories of democracy hold

that part of what justifies democratic political structures
over alternative institutions is that democracy has a suf-
ficiently strong tendency to make correct political deci-
sions, as judged by procedure-​ independent standards.1
Landemore’s defense of democracy is epistemic/​instru-
mentalist so defined.
Epistemic democrats and their intellectual opponents
tend to focus on whether fundamental political power,
and the basic form of government, should be democratic or
something else.2 I worry that this debate tends to oversim-
plify things and ignore some important questions, which
any epistemic theory must answer:

1. Which issues are subject to political decision-​

making, at all, as a matter of normal course and as
a matter of reserve powers?
2. Even if a society should be fundamentally demo-
cratic, should certain political decisions be made
through alternative, non-​ democratic methods,
subject to democratic checks?

1. Schwartzberg 2015.
2. A n epistocracy is a political system which, by law, in some
way apportions fundamental political power according to
some legal criterion of knowledge, expertise, or political
competence.
70 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

The first question concerns what we might call the scope of

politics; the second concerns the scope of democracy.
Not everything should be subject to political decision-​
making. Some issues properly remain outside the sphere
of politics, either as a matter of normal course or even
in principle. So far, though, epistemic democrats remain
mostly silent about what properly goes inside or outside
the sphere of political decision-​making.
Whether something is properly subject to political
control is at least in part determined by epistemic consid-
erations. For instance, if for a given issue, all forms of polit-
ical decision-​making are inferior to non-​political methods,
then that issue should stay outside the scope (at least
presumptively) of politics. Epistemic democrats such as
Landemore should—​in light of their own commitments—​
accept this very conclusion.

THE EPISTEMIC SELECTION PRINCIPLE

Every epistemic or instrumentalist theory of politics con-

tains some version of what I’ll call the Epistemic Selection
Principle:

Epistemic Selection Principle

Choose the institutional framework that tends to produce
the best decisions or deliver the best results, where the
results are judged by the correct procedure-​independent
standards, whatever those are.
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 71

Different epistemic theories contain different variations

on this principle. What unites epistemic theories is that
they give some version of this principle significant weight.
The greater the weight or the stronger the version of the
principle, the more epistemic the theory is.

THE RIGHT TO COMPETENT

G OV E R NA NCE

I think everyone—​not just philosophers already committed

to judging democracy by its results—​must take epistemic
considerations seriously. Upon reflection, we’ll see that
most of us already have strong moral intuitions in favor of
the idea that the legitimacy and authority of government
depend in significant part on its competence and reliability.
To illustrate, consider an analogy. Imagine a defendant
has been accused of first-​degree murder. During the trial,
both the prosecution and defense call witnesses, present
evidence, challenge arguments, and the like. Afterward,
the jury retires to deliberate about whether the defendant
is guilty. Suppose after a few hours, they come forth and
declare him guilty. However, suppose we also learn the jury
had any of the following features:

1. Ignorance. The jury paid no attention to the facts of

the case, slept through the trial, and did not read the
transcript. They found him guilty by flipping a coin.
2. Misinformation. The jury deeply misunderstood the
facts of the case. For instance, they had clearly false
72 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

beliefs about where the defendant was during the

murder, what the defendant’s relationship to the
victim was, and so on. Their false beliefs explain
why they found him guilty.
3. Tribalism. It turns out the jurors were “vote guilty”
kinds of people. That is, they each had a weird
quirk where they always voted guilty, regardless of
the evidence, because that’s what their neighbors
and friends tended to do. If we gave them hundred
trials, they’d say guilty every time, regardless of
the evidence.
4. Malice. The jurors found the defendant guilty
because they didn’t like his race, sex, gender, sex-
ual orientation, job, birthplace, or some other irrel-
evant factor.
5. Selfishness/​Conflict of Interest/​Corruption. They
found guilty because they took a bribe.
6. Irrationality. The jurors found the defendant guilty
because they processed information in deeply
irrational ways.
7. Stupidity/​Incompetence: The jurors found the defen-
dant guilty because they lacked the capacity to
understand the information they were presented.

If we learned the jurors acted in any combination of

these ways, we would think it’s a miscarriage of justice to
enforce their decision. The jurors owe it to society, as our
representatives, and to the defendant as well, to conduct
a fair, impartial, unbiased trail, and to reason in truth-​
conductive, reliable ways. In this case, we would conclude
the jury’s decision should be thrown out and the trial
conducted again.
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 73

The jury’s decision is high stakes. They have the power

to deprive a person of liberty and possibly his life. Their
decision will be imposed involuntarily upon the defendant.
Further, they are charged with administering justice. In
cases like this, it seems plausible that the jury is obligated
to make their decision competently and in good faith.
Moreover, it is permissible to enforce their decision only if
they make it competently and in good faith.
That seems true not merely of a jury decision, but of
many other political decisions. Many decisions are high
stakes. They can greatly affect other people’s welfare, alter
their life prospects, and deprive them of life, liberty, prop-
erty, and happiness. The people making these decisions
are usually charged with acting on behalf of the common
good and are supposed to aim for just outcomes. Thus,
I think juries, judges, police officers, presidents, legislators,
bureaucrats, governors, and even the voting public are con-
strained by what I call the Competence Principle:

It is presumed to be unjust and to violate a citizen’s rights to

forcibly deprive them of life, liberty, or property, or signifi-
cantly harm their life prospects, as a result of decisions made
by an incompetent deliberative body, or as a result of deci-
sions made in an incompetent way or in bad faith. Political
decisions are presumed legitimate and authoritative only
when produced by competent political bodies in a competent
way and in good faith.

The idea here is that high-​stakes decisions, imposed and

enforced through violence, must be made by a competent
body in a competent way, acting in good faith. If they are
not, the decisions are presumed illegitimate.
74 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

But let me put this more bluntly and in less legalistic

language. Exercising political power over others is a big
deal. You can deeply harm them, deprive them of their
rights, and even kill them. If you are going to exercise
power, you better do so in good faith and know what you
are doing. I take that to be a bare minimal condition of
your right to rule. Anything less than that is, frankly, evil.
I realize “evil” is a dramatic word, but it’s the right
word. If a jury sends you to jail without carefully think-
ing through the evidence, that’s evil. If a president sends
you to war because it helps his stocks, that’s evil. The only
reason to put up with incompetent exercises of power is if
we are forced by circumstances to do so, and we cannot find
any competent mechanism to make decisions.
If defendants can demand competence from juries,
can citizens also demand competence from the electorate?
Notice that the electorate’s decisions have the same mor-
ally salient features as the decisions of juries:

1. Electorates are charged with making morally

momentous decisions, as they must decide how to
apply principles of justice, and how to shape many
of the basic institutions of society. They are one of
the main vehicles through which justice is to be
established.
2. Electoral decisions tend to be of major significance.
They can significantly alter the life prospects of
citizens, and deprive them of life, liberty, and
property.
3. The electorate claims sole jurisdiction for mak-
ing certain kinds of decisions over certain people
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 75

within a geographic area. The electorate expects

people to accept and abide by their decisions.
4. The outcomes of decisions are imposed involun-
tarily through violence and threats of violence.

Combined, these are grounds for holding that the

Competence Principle applies not merely to juries, but to
the electorate as a whole. The relationship of the elector-
ate to the governed is morally similar to the relationship
between jurists and a defendant. The grounds for holding
the jury must act competently and in good faith apply to
the electorate as well.
Of course, these relationships are not perfectly anal-
ogous. On one hand, compared to typical defendants,
typical citizens have stronger grounds for demanding
competence. Many defendants are in fact guilty and have
in fact forfeited some of their rights. The defendants know
that some of their rights have been forfeited. For them to
demand competence is just to demand that juries take care
in determining what the defendants already know. In con-
trast, most citizens are innocent and have forfeited none
of their rights. They retain the strong liberal presumption
against interference of any kind. They retain the strong
presumption that evils not be visited upon them by force.
Thus, the average citizen is in a stronger position than the
average defendant to demand competence.
On the other hand, there is some sense in which the
electorate is exercising power over itself, while the jury is
exercising power over someone else. But it is not as though
all people unanimously agree to political outcomes. Rather,
some proper subset of the people gets its way, and can
impose its way upon all the other people, including losing
76 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

voters, innocent resident aliens, children, and non-​voters.

If the majority incompetently choose the warmongering
presidents, it’s not merely that majority who suffer the
consequences of their incompetence.
I won’t offer a precise theory of what constitutes com-
petence and what doesn’t. Any theory is bound to be con-
troversial, and I don’t need to resolve that controversy
for my argument to go through. Consider, by analogy, an
electorate behaving like the bad juries above. We ask the
electorate to pick the US president, a person who has tre-
mendous unchecked political power, including the power
(and tendency) to make war and to kill foreigners and for-
eign leaders almost at will. Now suppose the electorate
picks a candidate, but does so in ignorance, because of mis-
information, out of malice, due to perverse tribalism, out
of objectionable selfishness within a conflict of interest, or
from serious cognitive bias and deficiencies in reasoning.
There is no plausible theory that holds these are competent,
reliable, or good-​faith decision mechanisms. As we saw in
­chapter 1, most voters fall far below any reasonable cut-​off
for the boundary between competent and incompetent.

D O E L E C T I O N S M AT T E R ?

A stronger objection to my argument here is to say that

elections do not matter that much and so do not qualify
as “high-​stakes” in the appropriate sense. There is cer-
tainly some truth to this. For instance, in a recent paper,
political scientists Adam Dynes and John Holbein care-
fully and rigorously measure how parties affect economic,
education, crime, family, social, environmental, and health
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 77

outcomes. They find zero difference between Republican

and Democratic state governments over any short-​term
measurable period.3
Now, I don’t take that quite to show that elections don’t
matter so much as to show the two long-​term ruling par-
ties perform about the same. However, presumably elect-
ing the Libertarians or the Communist Party would have
a stronger effect. Further, there is still significant evidence
that Republicans and Democrats tend to push candidates
in the middle of the ideological spectrum of the voters in
a given region—​though there is also strong evidence that
causation also goes the other way. If so, then the quality of
the candidates depends in significant part on the quality
of the voters.
Rather than try to definitively answer the question of
how much elections matter, I’ll pose the issue in the form
of a dilemma for the other side. Either you hold elections
matter, in terms of their impact on policy or outcomes, or
you don’t. Of course, you can debate how much they matter.
You can assign a number from, say, one to one hundred on
how much impact you think voters have through elections.
If you think elections do matter and are high stakes,
then the argument over the past two chapters should dis-
turb you. Voters routinely violate the Competence Principle.
We ask voters to choose leaders and, in some cases, to vote
directly on policy, but voters are mostly ignorant, misin-
formed, and irrational; they choose sides for capricious
reasons and reason about politics in ways we would recog-
nize as infantile in any other sphere of life; they do not

3. Dynes and Holbein 2019.

78 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

vote on the basis of ideology or their interests; they attach

themselves to parties for essentially arbitrary reasons.
If you think elections don’t matter at all or matter very
little, then they aren’t subject to the Competence Principle
because they are not sufficiently high stakes. This means
that voters’ psychology does not matter because their votes
as a whole do not matter, and their votes do not matter
because elections do not matter.
But now, having said that, you must swallow some
big bullets. If elections do not affect policy outcomes in a
significant way, then it’s hard to see why one would think
democracy is justified. Why would it matter if everyone
gets to vote, or if they get to vote equally? Why not, say,
disenfranchise all women, since, by hypothesis, elections
do not matter and do affect outcomes?
If elections do not significantly affect outcomes, then
presumably you would be indifferent to me (1) waving
a magic wand that makes everyone perfectly informed,
(2) maintaining the status quo, or (3) waving a magic wand
that makes everyone advocate, say, fascism or Leninism.
Presumably you are in favor of eliminating all civics edu-
cation, since by hypothesis, elections don’t matter and so
having an educated citizenry does not matter. If elections
don’t matter, then presumably we should dispense with
them entirely, or hold them once a generation. And so on.
In my experience, no one is willing to bite these bul-
lets. “Elections don’t matter that much” is used as an objec-
tion to my argument but the objector never means it.
As an aside, I am often accused of defending an elit-
ist view of democracy. But notice that my premises are
not elitist. I have never argued that smart people ought
to rule because they are smarter, or that intelligence and
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 79

knowledge entitles you to power. (Indeed, I am skeptical

than anyone should have power over anyone else, period.)
Rather, I am making what I take as a bland, theory-​neutral
point: When you exercise significant power over others,
you owe it to them to do so competently and in good faith.
This is not a liberal, libertarian, conservative, or socialist
idea. Rather, it’s an idea that can and I think must be fit
into any political theory. I am simply asking that we hold
everyone who exercises significant power over others to
basic and rather low moral standards. I don’t regard voters
as somehow, through moral magic, exempt from these low
moral standards. Unfortunately, we have strong evidence
that voters systematically fail to meet them.

H O W T O A P P LY T H E S E P R I N C I P L E S :
THE OPTIONS

The Epistemic Selection Principle tells us to choose the

institutional framework that is likely to produce the most
just or overall best results, as judged by independent stan-
dards. Landemore is committed to it.
The Competence Principle is an independent idea.
Rather than holding that we should pick the best-​
functioning institutional framework, it tells us that high-​
stakes political decisions are illegitimate when made
incompetently or in bad faith. It tells us to avoid imbuing
incompetent or bad-​faith bodies with power. It tells us that
a person or group should have power over a given issue only
if they will use it competently and in good faith.
Both principles give us many options about what to
do, though. Complying with them could require paying
80 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

attention to and altering any of the following aspects of

political decision-​making:

1. Scale: The number of people or geographic range

over which a particular decision, law, or policy
applies.
2. Timing: How quickly or slowly decisions are made,
or when the decisions are made.
3. Form: Who rules and how power is distributed
among the people who rule.
4. Scope: Which issues and topics are regularly or in
principle subjected to political decision-​making.

Existing debates about the epistemic credentials of democ-

racy largely focus merely on the question of the overall
form of government, such as whether governments should
be democratic. Again, this oversimplifies the debate about
epistemic merits of democracy. If we want to make govern-
ment perform better, or eliminate the most incompetent
and unreliable decision-​making methods, we have plenty
of options.
The scale of government—​ or other institutions—​
concerns the number of people or the geographic range
over which a particular decision is made or over which
some political body holds power. Consider, for instance,
that the size of many counties or similar political units
around the world were chosen on the basis of available
technology. The sheriff should have jurisdiction over an
area that could be covered in one-​day’s horse ride. It may
turn out that more localized, federalized, and devolved
forms of government function better than more central-
ized governments, or it may not. In addition, there are
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 81

debates about whether ethnic and linguistic diversity

undermine interpersonal trust and as a result impede
political functioning.4 Communist-​style property institu-
tions seem to function well on a small scale, for instance,
among the one-​hundred-​person or fewer Hutterite colo-
nies, but not on a large scale among diverse strangers.5
The timing of government concerns when and how
quickly political decisions are made. For instance, it may
turn out as empirical matter, that certain decisions tend
to be more reliable if made after a “cooling-​off” period.
Political theorist Greg Weiner argues that this was James
Madison’s intention in designing the US Constitution—​
the goal was not so much to put in checks and balances to
reduce majoritarian tyranny or factionalism, but instead
to reduce hot-​headed responses to problems.6 Or, consider
the famous and disturbing study that finds that whether
judges in parole hearings decide to grant parole or not
seems to be overwhelmingly determined by how recently
the judges have had a break and a snack.7 If such results
hold up, this tells us that parole hearings should not be
scheduled back to back, because having tired and hungry
judges causes them to make unjust decisions.
The form of government concerns which people are
granted power and in what proportion. In an absolute
monarchy or dictatorship, one person holds all the fun-
damental power. In an aristocracy or oligarchy, a small
group of elites share the fundamental power, while most

4. A lesina, Spolaore, and Wacziarg 2005.

5. Schmidtz 1994.
6. Weiner 2012.
7. D
 anzinger, Levav, and Avniam-​Pesso 2011.
82 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

are excluded. In a democracy, each person is entitled

to an equal share of fundamental power. In practice,
though, no kingdoms are truly absolute (power is always
shared by others) and no democracies are truly equal
(some people always have more effective power than
others).
Further, the form of government concerns specific
questions about how decisions are made. Is there a strong
central government or is power devolved? Is there a multi-
cameral or unicameral legislature? Is there a strong or weak
executive? What kind of oversight do courts have over leg-
islation? Which voting system does the government use,
if any? Are legislators elected, appointed, or chosen by lot-
tery? If we care about how well government performs, we
should not simply ask whether the government should be
democratic, but also ask which kinds of democracies per-
form the best. Perhaps parliamentary systems with weak
executives and proportional voting outperform, say, the
American system.
The scope of government concerns which issues are
subject to political decision-​making, either as a matter of
normal course or as a matter of reserve powers in unusual
or emergency decision-​making. While the form of govern-
ment is about who has power, the scope concerns over what
they have power.
For instance, almost no one thinks governments
should decide which consenting adults may marry one
another, beyond restrictions preventing incest. The reason
for rejecting the subjection of such decisions to political
choice is not simply that it would violate citizens’ autono-
mous rights, but also because a Ministry of Marriage would
not make good decisions.
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 83

Similarly, modern economics holds that governments

are generally incompetent to set prices for goods and ser-
vices or to engage in widespread central planning of the
economy. If contemporary economics is correct, then, the
principle of epistemic selection tells us to leave a great deal
of fundamental economic planning outside the scope of
government, whatever form the government may other-
wise have. Further, to what degree governments can effec-
tively intervene or regulate the economy on the margins is
itself largely an empirical question, which depends in part
on how badly such regulation will be subject to rent-​seeking
or other forms of government failure. It is something a
democratic vote might discover, but not quite something it
can just decide. Again, the principle of epistemic selection
and the Competence Principle tell us to set the scope of
political regulation of markets in part by determining how
well political regulation works. The less competent govern-
ment is, or the less it acts in good faith, the less right it has
to regulate and the less power it may have.
Linguists make the same conclusion about language.
Norms of language, including changes in vocabulary, pro-
nunciation, or grammar, arise spontaneously, through the
interactions of speakers over time, without any central
directing agency. Planned languages, such as Esperanto,
do not catch on. While government boards can influence
language here and there, and in some cases help improve
alphabets, in general, no one thinks governments to
be competent to create and plan our languages. Similar
remarks apply to many other social norms or institutions.
One reason we might reject having government set the
rules of fashion or religion is that government bureaucra-
cies would do so less competently than civil society.
84 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

Consider another example: When David Estlund ana-

lyzes why democracy is preferable to anarchy, he con-
fines himself to discussing the issue of punishment.8 He
does not offer any general proof. He has readers imagine
a cartoon society called Anarchic Prejuria.9 In Prejuria,
there are widely recognized moral and social norms, and
people largely agree upon the content of justice. However,
there are no institutions for enforcing the rules of jus-
tice or for apprehending, trying, or punishing offenders.
Instead, every individual engages in private punishment.
Estlund thinks this would lead to a humanitarian disaster,
while a democratic state with jury system would greatly
outperform it.10
Two problems are immediately noticeable with this
argument. First, it’s a strawman critique of anarchism;
no anarchist could regard Estlund as providing plausible
characterization of their view. Instead, both left and right
anarchists have described at length how various non-​
state mechanisms of enforcement might function, and
they have argued at length that such mechanisms might
outperform state-​based systems.11 Whether these institu-
tions are workable is not our concern. I merely note here
that Estlund ignores this anarchist literature. He loads the
intellectual dice in his favor by assuming that anarchism
means ad hoc, private enforcement, while anarchism

8. Estlund 2007, 146.

9. Estlund 2007, 138.
10. Estlund 2007, 145–​147.
11. E.g., see Huemer 2013; Leeson 2016; Stringham 2014;
Ostrom 1990.
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 85

should instead be regarded as having various non-​state

institutional mechanisms of enforcement.
The second problem is that even if the argument for
government criminal justice over anarchic enforcement
goes through, that hardly tells us about other issues. On
the price of commodities, anarchic methods (i.e., market
forces of supply and demand) beat democratic methods
(e.g., setting prices through deliberation). The question is
not, Estlund would agree, whether everything should be
decided through democratic mechanisms or some other
mechanism, but instead, for all possible institutions,
which mechanism would produce the best results. Even if
Estlund has strong grounds for arguing that fundamen-
tal political power should be democratic, that leaves open
which decisions should be subject to political control and
which should be decided by social norms, civil society, and/​
or markets.
The issue is not whether we should have everything
subject to some form of democratic control, everything
decided through random selection, or everything decided
by whatever exists of civil society, private choices, or mar-
kets, devoid of government. Rather, this should be deter-
mined on a case-​by-​case or issue-​by-​issue basis. Even if
government is democratic, many issues should remain
largely outside the scope of that government’s control.

10 % L E S S D E M O C R A C Y

In the recent, remarkable book 10% Less Democracy,

Garrett Jones splashes some cold water on democracy’s
most excited enthusiasts. Jones’s major point is that if
86 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

we examine the relationship between (A) how democratic

a country is and (B) various desirable outcomes, such as
prosperity, growth, stability, and so on, we do not see a
simple positive relationship. Rather, it’s an upside-​down
U-​shaped curve. Too little democracy is a bad thing, but
so is too much democracy. The US, France, and many other
countries are on many issues on the right side of the curve;
that is, they will generate better outcomes if they scale
back a bit. Democracy is good, but only in moderation.
Much of what Jones does is review the existing empiri-
cal work in economics to show there is more or less a con-
sensus on each of the following cases where less democracy
produces better outcomes12:

1. Longer term limits and longer terms for represen-

tatives produce better outcomes. When politicians
have short careers and short terms, they not only
spend too much of their time campaigning (and, in
the US, fundraising), but they also pursue short-​
term goals at the expense of long-​term, lasting
prosperity. Shorter terms and short-​term limits
mean politicians instead choose policies that cre-
ate seemingly good effects today but lead to bigger
crashes and problems tomorrow.
2. Central banks should not be controlled by demo-
cratic means. Rather, independent central banks
consistently outperform democratically controlled
banks. When politicians can push central banks
around, they usually chase short-​term positions

12. Jones 2020.

 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 87

that lead to long-​term disasters, inflation, and

recessions.
3. Elected judges, bureaucrats, and administrators
consistently perform worse than appointed per-
sonnel. Certain technocratic jobs need highly
skilled administrators, but citizens are bad at
selecting them. Instead, it’s better to use, for
example, “merit commissions,” in which bands of
experts deliberate and put forward recommended
administrators, who are then chosen by elected
officials.

This is just a sampling. Again, note that Jones is not merely

stating his own conclusions here, but summarizing the
existing literature and showing there is something like a
consensus.
Let’s take a moment to reflect on one of Jones’s exam-
ples, an example I have also worked on.13 The US criminal
justice system presents a puzzle: Why is criminal justice in
the US so unusually punitive? The US incarcerates people
at a much higher rate than almost any other country and
gives prisoners unusually long and harsh sentences. People
on the Left suspect it’s because of racism, but the US crimi-
nal justice system of mass incarceration and unusually
high levels of generalized violence appeared only when rac-
ism waned. Further, overwhelmingly white US states are
harsher toward white criminals than most countries are
toward minorities. People on the Right usually claim it’s
because of the breakdown of civil society leading to higher

13. Surprenant and Brennan 2020.

88 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

crime. But the US system’s punitiveness is not propor-

tional to crime. It indeed started becoming more punitive
as crime rose in the 1960s, but it continued to become ever
more punitive even once crime started its precipitous fall
in the mid-​1990s.
It turns out that a significant part of the story has to
do with how prosecutors and district attorneys are selected
in the US. In the US, but not in most other liberal coun-
tries, they are politicians who have to constantly seek re-​
election. Americans are systematically misinformed about
the crime rate (they think there is far more crime than
there is, and they think crime is going up even when it’s
going down), about the effectiveness of jail as a deterrent
to crime (they think it’s a good deterrent), about the effects
of incarceration on criminality (it turns out incarceration
reinforces criminal behavior), and so on. Voters reward pol-
iticians who pledge to be “tough on crime” even when such
measures backfire and make things worse. Anyone who
proposes, say, educating or rehabilitating criminals is seen
as “soft on crime” and as offering free benefits to criminals
which law-​abiding citizens do not enjoy. The result is that
politicians are in an arms race.14
These examples are just examples. I don’t necessarily
expect you, the reader, to be convinced by any of them.
After all, I am merely reporting the conclusions of vari-
ous research papers, but not carefully walking through the
evidence. This isn’t a cop-​out. Rather, part of the reason
is that question of which issues should be insulated from
political control, period, and which issues should be subject

14. Surprenant and Brennan 2020.

 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 89

to political control but insulated from democratic control,

is too big for one book. A careful look at prison policy takes
more than one book. A careful look at central banking takes
still more. Examining optimal regulation takes even more.
Thus, my goal in this chapter is not exactly to con-
vince you that we should scale back democracy, or govern-
ment as a whole, in any of these exact cases. Rather, my
goal has been to argue that taking instrumental/​epistemic
arguments for democracy seriously requires the theorist to
admit that sometimes it’s best not to subject certain issues
to political control at all (or only as a reserve power in emer-
gencies), and often, in a generally democratic government,
it’s best to have many issues insulated from democratic
control. Even if you think democracy is overall the best
form of government, often less democracy generates bet-
ter results. Epistemic democrats must grant these points in
the abstract, and so it becomes an open debate just how to
apply these conclusions. Further, I’ve argued that everyone
must be concerned with competent government, because
I’ve given an independent argument for why people have
a right not to be subject that all high-​stakes decisions be
made competently and in good faith.

WHO DECIDE S WHO DECIDE S?

Political theorists may think they have a ready-​made objec-

tion to this entire line of argument. They might object
that the question of the scope of politics is itself a politi-
cal question, which therefore must be decided politically.
The application of the Epistemic Selection Principle or the
Competence Principles are themselves political issues.
90 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

Therefore, someone must decide where and how to apply

them. There is no “outside the scope of politics” per se,
though there may be issues where governments do not
regularly and actively control much.
In a published piece replying to her critics, Landemore
argues that the question of “who decides” is best decided
through democratic means.15 She says that in specialized
cases, democracies will know that it makes sense to turn
over certain decisions, such as health regulations or cen-
tral bank interest rates, to panels of experts rather than
deciding directly. She thus acknowledges, as she should,
that there are some issues where even a well-​functioning
deliberative forum of non-​experts would be less reliable
than a forum of experts.
This may seem to contradict her otherwise strong
assertion that the rule of the many always beats decision-​
making by experts. She saves herself by asserting that the
decision whether to empower an expert panel is itself best
decided by democratic means. So, for her, ultimately demo-
cratic bodies are still in charge and hold the fundamental
power.16

15. Landemore 2016.

16. The economist Arnold Kling remarked that an ideal democ-
racy and an ideal epistocracy would perform equivalently.
Assume both a democratic and epistocratic body not only
know what they know, but also know their own limits
and know when the other body would perform better. In
that case, for any decision, they would know whether they
should decide for themselves or instead “phone a friend”/​
delegate the issue to the wider or narrower body. The
interesting question, Kling says, isn’t which performs bet-
ter in principle, but in practice. In practice, which body is
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 91

I think this kind of argument is mistaken. Further,

epistemic democrats such as Estlund and Landemore can-
not accept it, because it is incompatible with their views.
Consider a possible parallel debate between epistemic
democrats such as Arneson and Estlund against pure pro-
ceduralist democrats, such as Jürgen Habermas or Joshua
Cohen. Epistemic democrats, by definition, hold that there
are procedure-​independent standards for judging the qual-
ity or value of political decisions, and part of what justi-
fies particular decision-​making methods or institutions is
their tendency to track these true standards. The procedur-
alists claim what counts as right or wrong, good or bad,
is something that people debate and disagree about, and
conclude that no independent standards bear on the con-
tent of those decisions. They try to counter the Epistemic
Selection Principle by saying, “Well, who decides what the
right standards are and whether a particular body or insti-
tution meets them? Someone has to decide that and someone
has to create and enforce the various political institutions.
Therefore, epistemic theories turn out by necessity to be
procedural.”
It’s true that when writing a constitution, the authors
will make a decision about what to include and what to
exclude from government control. They will also make a
decision about which powers to delegate to whom. When
the constitution is ratified, those voting for or against it will
in turn make the same kinds of decisions. Nevertheless,
this does not imply there is no independent truth of the
matter about which topics are properly subject to state

more likely to suffer from the Dunning-​K ruger Effect, be

overconfident, fall prey to cognitive biases, and so on.
92 | B rennan — D emocracy without R omance

control and which are not, or which powers should be del-

egated to whom.
Consider, by analogy, if you make a conscious decision
to avoid robbing your colleague, you would not conclude
that because you decided not to, that there are no exter-
nal standards by which to judge your behavior, or that the
rightness or wrongness of your decision was determined
by your choice. Rather, you think your choice not to rob
your colleague means you choose to conform to pre-​existing
moral standards. Had you decided to rob your colleague,
you would have acted wrongly. No coincido en
The same point applies to those writing the constitu- absoluto con esta
idea esencialista
tion. When the Soviets decided to instantiate central plan- objetivamente un
que existe

ning, they decided wrongly, because the government would criterio correcto.
Sorry Brennan

of course be incompetent to engage in central planning.

When the US founders decided to instantiate freedom of
religion, they decided rightly, because in fact people have
this right and in fact states are not competent to select the
correct religion. When someone writes a constitution, they
are not deciding by fiat what is properly subject to political
control; rather, they are to a large part deciding whether
to conform or violate independent principles about what
should and should not be subject to political control.
A similar line of argument holds for the question of
“who decides who decides”—​that is, for the scope of gov-
ernment itself. Thus, when Landemore says that democracy
is best fit to decide which issues should be granted under
direct democratic or epistocratic rule, she should—​for the
sake of consistency—​be read not as saying that the scope
of politics is itself a question only democracy should decide,
but rather that—​in light of what she takes the empirical
and theoretical work on decision-​making to show—​the
 D emocracy : M aybe L ess I s  M ore | 93

Epistemic Selection Principle tells us that democracies are

competent to decide which powers should be delegated
to which bodies. She can and indeed must admit that for
many issues, there’s an independent truth of the matter
that they should be left to civil society or the market.